Readers’ wildlife photos

We have two photos today, as I’m conserving pictures now that they’re running a tad low (send yours in, people!). But these are good ones.

First, reader Julian Cattaneo from Canada sent us a gorgeous bird:

This chap was hanging around a semi-outdoor restaurant in Las Peñitas, Nicaragua — I assume seeking to scarf a morsel or two, but he (I assume “he” but really don’t know) flew off empty-beaked. It’s a zanate, or Nicaraguan grackle (Quiscalus nicaraguensis). I’d guessed some kind of crow at first, but it’s not a corvid.

On November 10 of last year, Reader Roger Latour sent us a page of maple-leaf photos from his upcoming botanical book. Today we get the maple “keys”, also known as samaras or achenes, which are the winged fruits of the tree. They’re lovely when arrayed like this. Roger’s notes:

This is from my book (maples, elms and a group of cherry trees) due in about two weeks [JAC: this was sent February 15; it’s not out yet, but should be soon]. It will be published in French and also in English.

Info about the plate: All at the same scale, these are the fruits of all the maples to be found in Montreal and it will pretty much match what maple species grow in Chicago.

I always called those maple seeds helicopters. Along the rivers in the Midwest the trees are first, the Willow, then the Cotton wood and finally the maple. If hunting mushrooms always look around the base of the maples. Don’t ask why but that is where I find them.

Interesting! Like what is suspected about some of the differences in leaf shape between species, I suppose some of the differences in the seeds between these species is not due to natural selection but is instead due to neutral evolution by genetic drift.

The first thing I noticed is that it looks like the common grackle. We called those helicopters also as kids. We’d take them apart and put the sticky part on our noses for whatever reason and laugh. Nice pictures.

Well, thanks…Common names… so many to choose from! There is also ash-leaved maple. Changes from region to region. Here in Montréal we call it “érable à Giguère”. But nobody knows who that person is! But that vernacular name is so typical in Québec that is the normalized french name for the species. And, yes, mine also have a ton of seeds. The local back alley gang of squirrels depends on it for the winter.

Great photos of the maple fruits, and useful for identification. Thank you for sharing. However, I was taught that samaras are single-seed fruits with a wing-like structure to catch the air, while the fruits of maples, having two winged seeds that separate are designated schizocarps, literally “split fruits”.